This statement-making DIY faux fireplace was accomplished for less than $600!
Also learn how to transform a builder-basic kitchen island, a walk-in bedroom closet, and traditional doorways.
How to Build a DIY Faux Fireplace
by Lauren of Bless’er House
Hello, I’m Lauren from Bless’er House. I blog all about my adventures to make my new basic builder grade house look like a cozy eclectic cottage on a major budget. You can check out an entire before and after progress home tour over on my blog.
Adding a faux fireplace has been one of my favorite projects! I found a beautiful reclaimed mantel from an architectural salvage warehouse by checking Craigslist for a month or two. There are plenty out there if you take the time to look. We stripped off all of the old paint so we had a clean slate to work with. (If you go this route, too, follow all directions for the wood stripper and remember to wear a mask just in case the paint has lead in it.)
Tip: if you need to build your own, check out this DIY Mantel or browse these gorgeous faux fireplaces for ideas.
DIY Faux Fireplace, Part One: Carpentry
Materials:
- The ready-made mantel front (found for $100 on Craigslist)
- Paint stripper (We used Citristrip)
- Chemical resistant gloves
- Scraper
- Bucket
- Basic paint brush
- 3 plywood sheets
- 9 2×4 boards
- Carpentry nails
- Finishing nails
- Drywall screws
- Tape measure
- Pencil
- Circular saw
- Jigsaw
- Piano hinge
- Hammer
- Power drill
- Hack saw
DIY Faux Fireplace, Step 1: Find the center of the wall and decide on the measurements based on the mantel.
DIY Faux Fireplace, Step 5: Nail the hearth top into the hearth frame base.
DIY Faux Fireplace, Step 6: Add anchors to the mantel. We nailed 2x4s inside the back of the frame. The distance between the edge of the mantel top and the 2×4 anchor is 2 plywood widths (to allow us to match the molding of the mantel, see step 13 below). The distance between the outer edge of each leg and the edge of the 2×4 anchor is one width of the plywood.
DIY Faux Fireplace, Step 9: Cut a piece of plywood to the dimensions of the anchors. Place it over the mantel opening to make into the surround.
Optional Firebox Door
Here’s where our faux fireplace becomes a bit more than just a faux fireplace. We wanted the space behind to still be useful, so we put in a door to fake a firebox. This gives us access to our outlet on the wall behind the fireplace to run our cords out of sight like a media cabinet. If this doesn’t apply for you, skip the Optional Steps 1-6 and go straight to Step 11, below.
Optional Firebox Door, Step 1: We measured for the faux firebox door and left a bit of space (1-2 inches) at the bottom to create a threshold that will support the door and keep the surround from bowing.
Optional Firebox Door, Step 2: Carefully cut out the firebox door.
Back to the DIY Faux Fireplace tutorial!
Part Two: Faux Chimney Plank Wall
Materials we used:
- 9 1×6 boards cut to width of mantel (70″)
- 2 1×4 boards cut to height from mantel to ceiling (50″)
- Level
- Pencil
- Popsicle sticks (or other type of spacer)
- Finishing nails
- Hammer
- 2 strips of quarter round finishing trim (50″ each)
- Drill and hole saw drill bit (optional)
Part 3: Adding Paint and Stone
Materials we used:
- AirStone bought at Lowe’s
- Hack saw
- AirStone adhesive
- Putty knife
- Popsicle sticks (or other kind of spacer)
- Concrete patio stones
- Rags
- Paint brush
- Paint bucket
- White paint (We used Valspar color matched to Sherwin Williams Pure White in semi gloss finish.)
- Gray paint sample sized pot (We used Valspar Rugged Suede.)
- Black chalkboard paint or other flat black paint
Paint and Stone, Step 1: Paint two coats of the white (or whatever color you choose) on all of the places on the fireplace that won’t be covered with stone.
The great thing about AirStone is it’s only $50 per 8 square feet of coverage, and no power tools are needed to cut them. A hacksaw was all we needed to cut the stones to size.
Hint: As you are fitting the stones, number the ends of the AirStone blocks so that you can put them back together later.
I chose to whitewash the hearth AirStone in the garage so that I wouldn’t have to worry about getting whitewash on our carpet.
To make the whitewash, I mixed 1 part of the white paint with 1 part water in a bucket.
Then, fit them onto the bottom surround.
Paint and Stone, Step 5: Hearth
To mimic a concrete hearth, we used concrete patio stones secured with the AirStone adhesive.
Paint the patio stones on the hearth with 2 coats.
At this point, I realized that I would rather have the AirStone white than just whitewash. I ended up painting it all white, but it’s better to try whitewash then switch to paint instead of painting and wishing you’d done whitewash. Once you paint, there’s no going back.
Part Four: Faux Stacked Log Front
Materials we used:
- Log, sliced on a band saw at 2 inches
- Gorilla Glue (or other strong adhesive)
Once we screwed the firebox door back on the faux fireplace, we realized the door was too heavy to constantly open and close as we accessed our electronics from inside of the firebox. We chose to keep them on the mantel instead until we could figure out a better solution. But we can still access the outlet.
And that was that! Our living room officially had a fireplace! We love it!
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Okay…. now that you are all positively drooling over Lauren’s fabulous faux fireplace (WOW!!!), put your tongue back in your mouth and run over to Bless’er House to see more from Lauren. I suggest you try the faux reclaimed wood tabletop and faux planked bookcase, but it’s hard to go wrong with budget industrial light fixtures — and I know you’ll appreciate 8 ways to make the most of having NO money for home decor!
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Get your fireplace fix with 25 gorgeous fireplace makeovers:
Find many everyday ideas for decorating your mantel and also for any holiday:
Originally published 12.27.2014 // Updated 09.04.2020
Thank you SO MUCH again for having me! I am so inspired by this blog constantly, so it’s an absolute honor to be featured. Hope you have a wonderful New Year!
Thank you for being our guest, Lauren! We LOVE this!!
Oh, and I’m happy to answer any questions if anyone has any at some point.
Lauren – This is FANTASTIC!! I’d love to know how you’ve hidden your components though. Where is your satellite/cable receiver hiding?!!
Thanks so much, Emily! I actually got a little sneaky with the decor on the mantel and used vintage books to disguise our box there. I’m working on a better solution, but for now it doesn’t bother us too badly on the mantel.
Hello. How beautiful. What is the width height of the side plywood pieces?
Thank you
Great job, Lauren! It looks amazing!
Lauren I absolutely LOVE this!
We are always wishing we had a fireplace.
Great job explaining the steps.
Thanks for the inspiration!
Wow! What a fabulous DIY fireplace makeover! Amazing! Love Lauren’s blog and so glad to find your blog now as well 🙂 One of my favorite projects we tackled this year was our fireplace as well! Happy New Year!
So glad you found us, Kendra! Happy New Year!
Looks amazing! Do you think instead of a door I could stick an electric fireplace insert? Thanks!
I’m no professional on this, Monica, but I would think since electric fireplace inserts are typically housed in wooden fireplace boxes and cabinets, it would be safe. It’s generally the same concept. We might take that route down the road, but it really doesn’t get cold here (it’s 60 degrees in December here right now) and we wanted to keep our spending as low as possible. If we attempt it, I’ll try to post an update. Hope that helps!
We live in Chicago, so electric fireplace would come in handy 😉 Thanks and Happy New Year!
If there’s one thing I’d like out of my living room, it’s the fireplace. I don’t like having to arrange my furniture around it and I don’t like the tv above the mantle. Think about your furniture arrangement before you add even a faux fireplace.
Gotta say, I agree. We have a wood burning real fireplace, unusable for the last 15 years due to needing a chimney liner. Our LR is not as large as this one. Placing the television over the fireplace would not work, since we would really be staining our necks to watch it. Honestly, I think that in this LR, although it is larger than ours, they would have the same problem. They did a beautiful job. I would be uncomfortable watching TV at that height.
Beautiful job!!! So much work. You could re-do the door in two pieces, or hinge the bottom instead of the side with chains for support so it drops out like a draw bridge.
I don’t know if you have come up with a better solution yet but thought I would share this: https://decorandthedog.net/decorandthedog/2014/10/28/the-coolest-remote-control-ever-logitech-harmony-remote
Your fireplace is amazing!
Thanks for the link, Angelina! We moved so we are on to different remodeling challenges in a new house now 🙂 but that remote sounds awesome!
my head just exploded! this is sooooooooooooo wonderful! Proud of y’all!
How do the wood slices hold up over time? I love the fresh cut look but do they grey over time? Did you seal them with anything to maintain their color? Thanks!
We’re going on 10 months since we built it, and the wood slices look just like the did on Day 1. 🙂 But you could definitely seal them with a matte polyurethane if you wanted. That might be a good idea for ours actually if we ever do notice the wood aging.
I’m curious why you chose chalkboard paint. I was expecting to see a cute chalk drawing of a fire at the end, but then you covered the whole thing with logs (not that the logs don’t look lovely, because they do).
I used the black chalkboard paint because I already had it in my craft stash and I needed a completely flat black. You could certainly put a cute chalk drawing on it instead, but I knew that would last two seconds with my three year-old running around. 😉
Love this! Will you please share the overall dimensions (including debth for the hearth)?
When searching for the mantel – what did you search on craigslist?
Can you please post the dimensions of the fireplace? Would love to know! Thank you
Hey! This looks great. How many boxes of airstone did it take?
Looks great!! What are the dimensions for the space you cut out of the plywood?
Looks awesome, where you used popsicle sticks, what did you use to fill the gaps?
Great work 🙂 doing too much hard work for fireplace I will try this kind of 🙂